Castle on a Cloud
by guilty angelic
Summary: PG for future installments that may contain slight swearing/violence. The year is 2029, and Artemis Fowl is celebrating his fortieth birthday with his family. Or, he *would* be, were he not missing in action. Where could Artemis be?


Castle on a Cloud Prologue 

**by Pocky and Pixi Stix**

~*~*~*~

Fowl Manor 

            The date was May 16, 2029. Artemis Fowl had just turned forty, and was celebrating his birthday with his mother, father, wife, and daughter at Fowl Manor. Or, he would have been, were he not missing. Diana Fowl sat in the black leather recliner in the study, thinking. Her father had disappeared only two nights ago, leaving a hysteric family, except for Diana. She had always been taught that hysteria never got anyone anywhere. Angeline Fowl entered the room, wide-eyed and insane. First her husband had disappeared (and had thankfully returned), and now her precious Arty had vanished as well: it was just too much for the old woman to handle. Diana, who had little tolerance for blind worry, sighed in exasperation and stormed into the laboratory, locking herself in. Her bodyguard pounded on the steel door in an effort to get her to let him in.

            "Di, please!" Forseti Butler cried, knowing full well that his grandfather, Domovoi Butler, would be livid that he had let the Principal lock herself into a potentially dangerous room.

            "Go away, Force! Tell Uncle Dom that I'll figure out away to get Papa back. He doesn't need to worry," Diana snapped, making Force flinch. Domovoi would not take this well…

            Meanwhile, Diana was looking around the computer-filled laboratory, wondering where she should start. Finally, she decided that Artemis's disappearance probably had something to do with his past. Therefore, it only made sense for her to study the multitude of old disks that Artemis had kept stored in a cupboard under lock and key, which she knew was there, even if she had never seen them.

            Diana opened a box on top of Artemis's main computer, knowing that the slim piece of metal she needed was in there somewhere. After pushing aside a few miscellaneous objects (among them a vessel that according to the label contained "mirrored contact lenses"… whatever they were), Diana found what she was looking for. She opened the lock on the cupboard door, to find only a few alien gadgets and a tub of disks. How anticlimactic. A look at the label on the tub told her that the disks contained the "diary of Artemis Fowl II, 2003-2005: Memoirs of the LEP". Diana's mind raced. What was the LEP? Was it code for something? Having inherited an insatiable curiosity from her father, Diana decided that she would be the one to crack this code.

            It only took minutes for her to find a lead.

**Excerpt from Artemis Fowl's diary, disk 2 (encrypted)**

            _June 1, 2004. I have remembered! Mulch Diggums returned to Fowl Manor today, much to my delight, and triggered the return of memories hidden by the mind wipe. I will not alert the People just yet, as they would probably send an LEP mind wipe squad up here sooner than I could accumulate enough technology to fight back. Mulch tells me that Haven is flourishing without me there to ruin their security. I'm sure Captain Short is very much enjoying her vacation from monitoring my activities. Speaking of which, I wonder how Holly is doing. She might even have been promoted now that I am not able to destroy her chances any more. Foaly must be extremely bored without the challenge of saving Haven anymore. Mulch says that Foaly "is still not satisfied with the salary old Julius Root is paying him". I really miss that group now. Domovoi reminds me that we may yet see them in the near future. I, however, very much doubt it._

Fowl Manor 

            It was time to pay old Uncle Dom a visit. Domovoi Butler was not really Diana's uncle, but he was as close as family, he and his little sister, Juliet. In his day, the eighty-year-old man had been Diana's father's bodyguard, and was now his closest counselor.

            "Dom?" Domovoi looked up from the book he was reading (_The History of Handguns_. Some things just didn't change).

            "Hai, Diana-chan*?" Dom asked, speaking in the Japanese taught to him by Madam Ko.

            "Ojisan**, could you tell me who Mulch Diggums, Holly Short, Foaly, and Julius Root are?" Diana asked bluntly. Dom tensed, staring at Diana now in concealed alarm.

            "Where did you hear those names?" Dom asked in a tight voice. Diana opened the disk that held the excerpt from her father's diary on the computer in the room, pulling up the file from June 1st.

            "I was looking through Papa's disks to see if I could find a clue as to where he disappeared to. Dom-ojisan, what's a mind wipe? And as far as I know, there has never been a city called Haven that has needed saving." Domovoi sighed; he was getting to old for this.

            "Di, I'm going to tell you a story that you will find hard to believe. However, I must assure you that it is accurate. The only ones who know of this are Juliet, Master Artemis, and myself. It all began a few decades ago, when your father was twelve years old. It was one or two years after your grandfather had gone missing, and Artemis had full control over what he could do…" Diana sat down quietly, listening to the old man's tale, which, though it was rather astounding, she found instinctively that it held truth.

            "So," Diana began after Dom had finished his account, "there are such things as fairies?" Dom nodded solemnly, knowing too well that wheels were turning rapidly inside his surrogate niece's head. He had seen the same look on Artemis's face all too often. Slowly, Diana smiled.

            "And you say Papa got in touch with these fairies by mentioning fairy-associated words in a phone call while you were dying?" Again Dom nodded, his mind uneasy. "Could you tell Force to be ready for an adventure? We're going to save Papa."

            Dom had the decency to wait until Diana had left the room before groaning. He was _definitely_ getting too old for this…

Haven City, the Lower Elements 

            All was quiet at LEP Headquarters in the Police Plaza. Holly Short (who, as it turned out, had _not_ been promoted from Captain) was sitting in the Operations Booth, bored out of her mind. With her was Foaly, who was in a similar state as Holly, and Commander Julius Root, who was in the same mood as he always was as of late: testy. Silence reined in the room as the three struggled to do something interesting. At last, Holly sighed.

            "You know what? It's too quiet. It may sound crazy, but I am starting to seriously regret mind wiping Artemis Fowl and his associates," she ranted.

            "You know what? You're right, it does sound crazy," Commander Root said, giving her the evil eye as he sucked on an unlit fungus cigar.

            "I agree with Holly," Foaly said, taking a sip of coffee. (He was actually beginning to like the human-made stuff.) "Artemis was the only one whose eyes didn't glaze over when I tried to explain some technology." Root snorted, and Foaly smirked, turning back to the monitors and taking another sip of coffee, which was promptly spit in consternation.

            "What's up?" Holly asked, startled at this display. Foaly was now tapping away at the keyboard, frantic.

            "Sentinel's picked something up! There hasn't been anything this loaded with Lower Elements jargon since Artemis Fowl tried to contact us!" the centaur replied. He hit the "Return" key, causing a voice to play.

            "_LEP, Recon, People, magic, fairies, dwarf, troll, Haven, underground, shuttleport, Koboi Industries, B'wa Kell, goblins, time stop, Atlantis, Tara._" It was the soft but commanding voice of a young girl.

            "Have you traced it?" Root asked.

            "Way ahead of you. I should be receiving the information right about no—" Foaly stopped mid-sentence, his face turning from white to gray. "Y-your not going to believe this, sir. The call was made to a line in the same house it was made from…"

            "So?" Root replied. "What's your point?"

            "The house… well, it's not really a house, per se… it's a manor. A manor belonging to our favorite Mud Man, in fact."

            "_D'arvit_!" Root swore with feeling.

            "But we _mind wiped_ him!" Holly cried at the same time. "We even monitored him for half a year!"

            "Short! I'm sending you and Trouble Kelp on a reconnaissance mission. Suit up!" Root barked, already taking control of the situation.

            "Uh, Commander, Trouble isn't a Recon sprite—" Foaly began, only to be cut off by his irate superior.

            "Did I ask your opinion, pony-boy? When it comes right down to it, the best three officers in the LEP are Captain Short, Captain Kelp, and myself, and I have to stay here and monitor the situation." Obviously, Foaly realized the logic and truth in Commander Root's words, and didn't comment.

Fowl Manor 

            It took an incredible amount of time— six hours— for Holly to get suited up, meet up with Trouble, and get a visa to above ground. The two famous LEP officers proceeded to Fowl Manor with extreme caution. Expecting to meet up with a forty-year-old criminal mastermind and a brick wall of a bodyguard, one can only imagine their surprise when a teenage girl and her slightly older, wiry bodyguard greeted them.

            Diana had begun preparations for the fairies' arrival only moments after she had called her own house from a different line, causing definite mayhem at LEP HQ. She had assembled the various gadgets that had been locked in the cupboard with her father's disks, sorted out which of the gadgets she would need to outwit the fairies (including two pairs of sunglasses that were equipped with anti-shielding filters that her father had invented from plans he had left himself in a laser disk.), and skimmed over a copy of the fairies' Book so that the fairies would not be able to outwit her. She then stuffed everything in a black duffle bag (along with her laptop, cell phone, and GPS unit) and put on a pair of the filtering sunglasses, saving the other one for Force. Her work completed for the moment, Diana walked into the front hall of the manor, where she met up with Force.

            "Ready?" Diana asked, tossing Force the extra pair of glasses.

            "Not really. What do these do, anyway?" the eighteen-year-old boy asked, holding them up to the light and away from his face, inspecting the lenses.

            "They enable us to see the fairies," Diana replied shortly, pulling out an almost exact copy of the Neutrino 2000. (Artemis had constructed this too, from plans he had hidden on the laserdisc.) Force made a face.

            "And the little green men from Mars, too, I presume," he grumbled, adjusting the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. Diana smirked, tossing a fairy-style gun to Force, who missed it and was hit in the head.

            "Of course," Diana replied, watching Force rub his head with slight amusement in her eyes. Then she continued in a more serious tone. "Listen, Force. Uncle Domovoi says that these fairies exist. You trust his judgment on everything else— why not on this, too?" Force scowled for a moment, before nodding his agreement. "Good. Ah, here come our guests now." Both Force and Diana focused their attention on the sky, where two figures invisible to the naked eye were advancing on Fowl Manor.

~*~*~*~

A/N: Meh… I figured this was a good place to stop. What do you guys think? I'm trying not to make Diana too much of a Mary Sue… but she's Artemis's protégée… she has to be virtually perfect! Which reminds me…

Disclaimer: P&PS does not own Artemis Fowl and all associtated characters. I do, however, own Diana Fowl and Forseti "Force" Butler.

Okay, hopefully I won't get writer's block on this, and hopefully I will have all the correct information from the books.

*"Hai, Diana-chan?"- "Yes, Diana?" the "-chan" suffix is used for close friends/family, and usually used when referring to young girls.

**"Ojisan"- "Uncle". Not to be confused with "Ojiisan", which is "Grandfather".

Please review!

Luv and sugar,

Pocky and Pixi Stix


End file.
